When Spring Died

Chapter Twenty

Poor Jean who'd been so shocked by what both parties said, gasped at the same time he sipped his champagne, proceeding to choke and cough. Odile gently patted his back and inquired as to whether he was alright. She passed him a lace handkerchief which he pressed to his mouth.

"I'd best take my leave of you all," Étienne said, tone strained with anger that he struggled to rein in. His nod was curt and impolite.

"Yes, I think you ought," Laurent snapped. "Only intelligent thing you can manage." He turned to Jean and began apologizing profusely.

As Étienne walked off, he noticed Odile's look of gentle sympathy cast his way.

He wanted to leave. Never had one event felt so fatuous and idiotic as this celebration. What was it even for??
It didn't matter. Nothing mattered anymore, except the fact that Ivette was incontinent to him. Maybe she always had been.

He sat on a marble bench by a burbling fountain, head in his hands as he contemplated what to do. His temples throbbed with a dull ache, and the delectable bubbling feeling of champagne had begun to fade.

"You've been drinking a great deal, haven't you?"

Étienne didn't know precisely when Henri la Marche took up the spot beside him, only that he was too distraught to care.

"I'm not so very drunk..."

"No, only very depressed."

Étienne looked away. Henri always descended like a foreboding harbinger of doom, with proclamations and ideas that posed tantalizingly dangerous in front of him. He dangled concepts in front of his face like a bone before a dog. Today would be no different, Étienne sensed.

"What ails you, Your Grace? I've noticed you are not with your fiancé." Henry scratched his pocked chin.

"That is what ails me."

Henri chuckled. "Hence the drinking then. Well, where there are women, there will always be reasons to drink, much to the misfortunes of our liver." He sighed and leaned back. "Did you hear Clarisse invited Sasha Morozov? None of the rest of his embassy, mind you."

"I did. But such rumors--"

"Oh, it is no rumor. Clarisse told me herself. One of her daughters...the youngest I believe...is a lady-in-waiting to Her Majesty, and she so gilded the name of the tsar that Clarisse wanted to see him for herself."

"If he has any good breeding in that Rysslandic blood of his, he'll decline," Étienne grumbled.

Henri laughed. "To be sure. But why Clarisse would allow such pestilence to even have the opportunity to breach high society is a true mystery."

Étienne grunted in response. How his head ached...

"I've been pondering the meaning of the word revolution," Henri mused after a long pause. "One's mind immediately drifts to war, bloodshed. Rather, I think revolution is a change in thought. A very great change." He thumbed at his nose. "I've also been reading about uprisings in ages past...overthrowing of kings and such. All because of revolutions in thought."

Étienne started to rise, but Henri tugged at his sleeve.

"Your Grace, you are unwell. Sit until you are not quite so dizzy."

Étienne did as he was told.

"Yes, revolutions are funny things. The results are rather interesting I find. That a certain group can come together because of a single shift in thought is remarkable."

"Monsieur, is there a reason you are telling me this?"

Henri sighed. "You're right. I am babbling. You know, I too had hoped to see Her Majesty today and arrange an audience in a more private setting, but it appears we are both in the same straits."